Sleepless j news ticker

15 May 2014Lots
of stuff going on this spring! I am excited to announce a new
project that I will be forming over the coming months, a "revivalist"
lounge project that will include a low-volume jazz instrumentation,
with me stretching (reaaaally stretching) out on vibraphones. Last year
I picked up a set of vibraphones from craigslist, and have been
steadily working with them. You will be hearing them on one of the
tunes that Redwood Wiresrecorded
in the studio last Winter (EP #2 is in post-production right now) Our
new project is called Tiki Vibes and we are working up sets of "jungle/tiki music"
hopefully to be ready to perform for you by end of summer. Due to this
and many other demands on my time, i will be taking a break from the
Slippery Slope in the interim. I have been called up for subbing and orchestral gigs with Mayflower Chorus, Chick Jagger, and The Special Guests; that last one invited me to a gig that was filmed in entirety and is airing on the Fenix Live channel, where you can watch me stumble through a 2-hr set lots of great classic oldies (with little to no preparation LOL). Conjunto Picante
completed their residency at Cigar Bar and has begun a new one at
Pedro's Cantina, across from ATT Park; fortunate to be hosting
afternoon Salsa sessions after Giants home games, and great food too -
win-win :-)

2 Dec 2013Great news to report: our original Redwood Wires
completed a studio session in SF last month, and EP #2 is now in
post-production. Looking forward to releasing some new songs from it
for you very, very soon ! It's unclear whether we'll be doing any
kind of formal release event, but i'll keep you posted if it happens.
Thank you Sean @ Tiny Telephone
for running and engineering our session and allowing yourself to get
caught up in some production duties as well ;-) I can highly
recommend that studio for your SF recording needs - spacious,
comfortable, well-staffed and (oh btw) very well-placed in SF - can't
beat the location. In other news, I recorded another show on the
H2N, this time one for the Slippery Slope. As they were going to do a
Sunday at Starry Plough, and as I already now know from my earlier
experience this year that this is one of those excellent venues for
capturing a live self-recording, I have put up the entire recording
(unedited, haha) from Slope's July show at this new Soundcloud for
posterity (to hear it show order, scroll down to the bottom and play
from there first). Slope has been in and out of the studio throughout
the summer so hopefully there will be some new recordings coming from
them as well. Lastly Conjunto Picante
is finishing up a "salsa residency" at Cigar Bar - monthly gigs there
for the ensemble from August - December, which is great - the dancers
love this band, and keep asking for them back, which is even better !

9 Apr 2013

Just a note that our original band Redwood Wires has a couple of tunes added to the playlist rotation at Indiecast Radio.
The playlist includes lots of great indie music from around the country
- a broad spectrum of genres from pop-rock, hard rock, roadhouse,
alt-country, soul, etc - so load it up on your laptop and let 'er rip
for as long as you desire. We were also featured in a local podcast called At the End of Radio for the March 5 episode "Hanging Out." We're
somewhere in the middle of that episode but it's all great stuff so
listen to it all the way through - they go on and on about their love
for our singer Orlando and recall another favorite band of theirs in
which he was also the vocalist (!)

31 Mar 2013Last
month the originals band I play with Redwood Wires gave a show at
Starry Plough in Berkeley, which ends up being a farewell to our
drummer. I really wanted to capture the state of the band (which has
lots of new material, but no new recordings of it yet), so I recorded
the entire show and put it up here on my soundcloud
for you. Thanks to my new Zoom recorder with the remote control, which
allows me to chop the recording up into pieces during the show, each
song is already broken out. So you can skip to
your favorites :-) Later in May the members of this band and
special guests will re-create the Smiths record The Queen is Dead for the SF Roots Music
people at Great American Music Hall (tickets for that show available here). Our salsa band Conjunto Picante
will give an encore cinco de mayo performance at Dolores park - this
year on May 4, rather than May 5, apparently it always has to fall on a
Saturday - and followed by a special "Roots of Salsa" live lecture +
performance at the College of San Mateo. The Slippery Slope is working
in new singer(s) and is reactivating this month and next; my next show
with them will be at a new place called Tupelo, which used to be
Mojito's, so I guess the menu as well as the music is changing quite a
bit over there ;-P

17 Dec 2012Now
that most of the holiday craziness has died down, time for an update
:-) Last year I came to know of a new chamber orchestra that was
forming in my area. This new group calls themselves the New Millenium Chamber Orchestra
(not to be confused with New Century - that name was already taken,
obviously) and is headed by Richard Frieman (D.M.A., Stanford). I had
the opportunity to sub on clarinet with them a few months back and was
extremely impressed by their high level of musicianship. The players
tend to hail from upper peninsula between San Carlos and Daly City;
many are nationally recognized in their instruments; their players
include former members of Houston Symphony, Houston Ballet
Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Air Force Band, SF Opera
Orchestra, and a 2-time National Fiddle Champion. The group is just
getting off the ground and tends toward public-domain repertory
(probably to save $), but also plays commissions and new original works
- their last concert closed with a "world premier" of a new film score
piece by noted composer Joachim Horsley,
who was in attendance that night. It is always a great honor for
an orchestra to be chosen to premier a piece, meaning this new group is
off to a fantastic start - and kudos to them for finding an untapped
niche for classical talent in this part of the Bay Area. On the night I
was subbing they just happened to be taking pubilicity photos, and I
was caught in one of them which appeared on the front page of the local
San Mateo paper. That same week the Slippery Slope was performing at
Bottom of the Hill and received coverage in the Bay Guardian for that
show, which included a picture also. Quite surprised to see my picture
in two different papers on one week, for two different groups :-P
The Slippery Slope also headlined a show at Yoshi's SF this fall, on
the big stage. This was somewhat nerve-wracking due to being summoned
to sound check at 4pm (for a 9pm show), and the check ran two hours...
but the sound and layout was terrific and we had a great turnout for an
intimate Sunday night show. I took pics of the "green room" as well as
the "orange room", both well-appointed and probably as nice a
backstage area I have yet seen. Someday i'll get around to posting
those pics LOL .

6 Jun 2012I'm still recovering from May 5, with a whopping
three shows on that day starting with cinco de mayo festival in Dolores
with Picante - thank you thousands of people, wherever you are -
followed by Redwood Wires show at Parkside for an afternoon happy hour,
followed by a private event with Picante. Picante is sad to be losing
our pianist and founding member Sanjay "Sanjito" - we wish him well and
will see him off to Europe this month. Tough job finding a montuno
pianist to replace him (!!) Chick Jagger & the Fingers will rock at
the very nicely appointed Club Fox (formerly Little Fox) in Redwood
city, opening for Led Zepagain. Those of you who are attending the Air
Supply show at Fox Theater next door that night may feel free to send
your date over to check us out if Air Supply isn't to their liking
(hahaha) The Slippery Slope lounge revival played the Sacramento
French Film Festival this spring, entertaining filmgoers in an
abandoned car dealership in downtown Sac set up as a temporary
shrine to the late Serge Gainesborg. Slippery Slopers will also be
headlining Bottom of the Hill this month plus getting a nice
write-up in the Bay Guardian to promote the show (woo hoo! how the heck
do you get those things anyway?) RW is in the studio wriiting a
bunch of new songs and we'll be debuting those soon and hopefully
working on CD #2 by this year's end. No time to vacation and relax this
summer!

2 Jan 2012Been
too long since the last update here, but things have been busy at the
end of the year. First off, Chick Jagger & Sticky Fingers returned
to the Rockit Room again - apparently, they love us - and played
downstairs (again) to an extremely enthusiastic crowd. Our
openers/co-bill this time were a special Doors tribute visiting from
L.A. and locals Just Cream. The Slippery Slope lounge/torch ensemble
had successful outings at Van Kleef , Yoshis, Knockout and 50 Mason;
they will return to 50 Mason twice next spring as well. This is a
really neat act for those who don't like "loud" bands but want to visit
something closer to Henry Mancini & Burt Bacharach type
orchestrations. Redwood Wires played a private event opening for
Switchblade Nixon, a really awesome classic rock cover-party band that
gigs infrequently but has an appreciative following. Finally, Conjunto
Picante returned to the newly-remodeled Cigar Bar in December; doubled
the venue's performance space and believe it or not they _still_ pack
the dance floor even thus! I am glad that we put ourselves out as a Puerto Rican band, and
we should continue that tradition. We should also continue having
famous Puerto Ricans dropping by on our gigs too... Band members
were stunned by the mystery man strolling into the venue at 12am with a
trombone case - it turned out to be none other than Jimmy Bosch
(!!) fresh from Eddie Palmieri's gig, and he sat in for a couple of
songs and even sang out the coro to Elena, Elena. What a treat, and an
honor to know that a player of Jimmy's caliber heard what we were doin'
and wanted to be a part of it!

1 Aug 2011:We
had a great turnout downstairs at the Rockit last Friday. Even better,
our draw was bigger than the _upstairs_ band that night (!) so we hope
to return there soon. The other two bands on the bill really brung it
and we'll be seeing more of those guys too. This week I'll be at Grant
& Green SF with Redwood Wires again, and later in the week in
the pit for a short run of Sweeney Todd in Berkeley (flute, clarinet).

9 Jun 2011:Special guest appearance tonight on sax/flute with indie rock Redwood Wires. Many thanks also to those who showed up at Conjunto Picante's
CD release event on June 4 - the turnout was fantastic and we got to
see and hear old friends and band alumni ! Thank you also to the kind sponsor of Millville Plains second set at Cheers last week - MVP and our good friends All Of A Sudden
thank you for the free round :-) we're holding down first
wednesdays at Cheers and building an awesome music scene in Pacifica
(of all places).

02 Feb
2011: Millville
Plains
is scheduled to return to the studio in March to (resume) recording
their second full-length CD, where i'll be contributing sax and a few
other things. Stay tuned.

31 Jan
2011Conjunto Picante
will be in Expressions studio in March recording more material for our
salsa demo. I'll be contributing sax and flute.

01 Jan
2011Recording update:
You can hear my clarinet on the new release from SF pop/rock
artist Firehead Jerry
release titled "Sidewalks", on track "Get It Done". Wide release
available on iTunes and Amazon.
I recorded a bunch of other stuff for them too, some of which
might have ended up on other tracks, and it's all great stuff anyhow,
so you might as well download the whole thing ;-P